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Vacation USA

Randy Daytona

Cold War Relic
pilot
Super Moderator
Good news for the airlines: the airport was packed at 4:30 am yesterday (we were normally catch the first flight out) - flight was fully booked. First time flying Southwest - no problems. Not sure if that was a visual approach or a high speed strafing run on final but he greased the landing.

Down in the Cradle of Naval Aviation checking on a few rental houses and hitting the beach. Beautiful white sand and clear emerald green water, fresh seafood and some good cheese grits on the menu, upper 80’s and sunny - if we ever move back, we will have to get a boat.

Drove out to Fort Pickens to see the sights.

https://www.nps.gov/guis/learn/historyculture/fort-pickens.htm

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Disappearing 6” gun mount

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Meyerkord

Well-Known Member
pilot
Good news for the airlines: the airport was packed at 4:30 am yesterday (we were normally catch the first flight out) - flight was fully booked. First time flying Southwest - no problems. Not sure if that was a visual approach or a high speed strafing run on final but he greased the landing.

Down in the Cradle of Naval Aviation checking on a few rental houses and hitting the beach. Beautiful white sand and clear emerald green water, fresh seafood and some good cheese grits on the menu, upper 80’s and sunny - if we ever move back, we will have to get a boat.

Drove out to Fort Pickens to see the sights.

https://www.nps.gov/guis/learn/historyculture/fort-pickens.htm

View attachment 31469

Disappearing 6” gun mount

View attachment 31470
Awesome place. I went there on a random Sunday a few years ago and was lucky enough to arrive right as they were preparing a cannon demonstration. They wore the traditional uniforms and went through all the motions of how they'd fire it back then. Pretty cool stuff.
 

Randy Daytona

Cold War Relic
pilot
Super Moderator
Made the journey from Pensacola to Savannah, stopping to visit a cousin in Jacksonville. My 5 year old needed to run, so where else than the Ronnie Van Zant Memorial Park. Freebird!

31534

Stopped to grab some lunch and ended up with the mid-life version of Mary Ann or Ginger (do I get biscuits or cornbread at Cracker Barrel ?)

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Now in Savannah. To the beach at Hilton Head today

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Headed back to the Scarbrough House tomorrow which has both gardens and a nice collection of beautiful model ships and maritime memorabilia.


31537
 

AllAmerican75

FUBIJAR
None
Contributor
Headed back to the Scarbrough House tomorrow which has both gardens and a nice collection of beautiful model ships and maritime memorabilia.


View attachment 31537

I'm going to have to go check that out.
 

Jim123

DD-214 in hand and I'm gonna party like it's 1998
pilot
While in Savannah, we were able to go the “Mighty Eighth” Air Force Museum. Definitely worth your time.

BTW, does anyone have the reason why the outer wings of the F-4 are angled up and the tail angled down?
It has to do with stability. They were pretty far along, somewhere between prototype and production, when they found the airplane wasn't stable enough (probably had high speed and/or high Mach issues, stuff that wasn't real well understood in the 1950s) and so they had to do something big. The tooling for the center wing box and fuselage was already done so they couldn't just add dihedral, not cheaply, or a much larger fin (with more structure and weight) so bending the wingtips up was the next best compromise. They tilted the horizontal stab down at the same time (I think that part is true). The simple explanation of why the tail too is the up and down sort of complement each other, or rather the secondary effects cancel each other out.

Look at, say, the vertical stabs on the F-15 compared to the advanced versions of the F3H (and other contemporary McDonnell products). Both machines were state of the art (for their time, but a generation apart) Mach 2+ interceptors.

avf4_1_01.jpg



Also look at some of the other solutions at the time, like the big ass ventral fins on the F8U-3 or the anhedral on the F-104 (which itself really taught the aeronautical establishment about "couples," when you move the flight controls one way but in certain flight regimes the airplane also does one or two other things at the same time that you didn't really want it to do).

The designers in the 1950s were really brilliant for first discovering and then dealing with new problems as they came along.




Picture credit: http://www.airvectors.net/avf4_1.html
 

Randy Daytona

Cold War Relic
pilot
Super Moderator
Well, at the airport hotel now - we always catch the first flight out in the morning. Especially with little children, it is all about less stress. Some observations: Enterprise rent-a-car was very good, paid extra for the walk away insurance if anything goes wrong. The Hyatt Regency in Savannah was nice, but some of the other Hyatts were terrible. Halfway through the trip, I cancelled the rest of the Hyatt’s and switched to Marriott - definite upgrade. At the Renaissance in Atlanta now (quite nice) - walk out and catch the SkyTrain first thing in the morning.

One last thing: if you have a stroller, American limits your stroller weight to 25 lbs (every other airline is 50 lbs). Years ago, our stroller weighed 27 lbs and they took it away from us at the ticket counter - had to carry my daughter all through the airport- we will never fly American again.

As for sites, we toured Boone Hall in Charleston:

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Did some study of the Revolutionary War battle at Tearcoat Branch which is where I grew up. Had some family that served under Francis Marion so to me it is very interesting- my cousin mentioned that Marion possibly used a special breed of horse called “Marsh Tackys” that could handle the swampy terrain of the Santee better than other breeds. Had never heard of this before - I believe Pickle is our resident horse expert - any thoughts?31640
(zoom in on the historical marker for your info)

Visited the South Carolina State Museum and Confederate Relic Room. They have some extensive rolls of South Carolina troops - found out my great, great grandfather was in Holcombe’s Legion, Cavalry, Company B. As the commanding officer’s wife was from Texas, the unit flag combined the SC Palmetto Tree and the Texas Lone Star. In the process of updating family history with an emphasis on military units as well as checking old military records for my hometown church - long but fun project. Here is the form if anyone needs it: (records older than 62 years are open to order from the public)


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Conveniently located across the parking lot is the children’s museum where the kids can go play while you are looking at models of the USS Hornet and USS Columbia…

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Unfortunately, not enough time to see the Battle of Cowpens or to even go by Sparkleberry Swamp in Rimini where I did some duck hunting in my youth - maybe next year…

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Last edited:

picklesuit

Dirty Hinge
pilot
Contributor
Well, at the hotel airport now - we always catch the first flight out in the morning. Especially with little children, it is all about less stress. Some observations: Enterprise rent-a-car was very good, paid extra for the walk away insurance if anything goes wrong. The Hyatt Regency in Savannah was nice, but some of the other Hyatts were terrible. Halfway through the trip, I cancelled the rest of the Hyatt’s and switched to Marriott - definite upgrade. At the Renaissance in Atlanta now (quite nice) - walk out and catch the SkyTrain first thing in the morning.

One last thing: if you have a stroller, American limits your stroller weight to 25 lbs (every other airline is 50 lbs). Years ago, our stroller weighed 27 lbs and they took it away from us at the ticket counter - had to carry my daughter all through the airport- we will never fly American again.

As for sites, we toured Boone Hall in Charleston:

View attachment 31639

Did some study of the Revolutionary War battle at Tearcoat Branch which is where I grew up. Had some family that served under Francis Marion so to me it is very interesting- my cousin mentioned that Marion possibly used a special breed of horse called “Marsh Tackys” that could handle the swampy terrain of the Santee better than other breeds. Had never heard of this before - I believe Pickle is our resident horse expert - any thoughts?View attachment 31640

Visited the South Carolina State Museum and Confederate Relic Room. They have some extensive rolls of South Carolina troops - found out my great, great grandfather was in Holcombe’s Legion, Cavalry, Company B. As the commanding officer’s wife was from Texas, the unit flag combined the SC Palmetto Tree and the Texas Lone Star. In the process of updating family history with an emphasis on military units as well as checking old military records for my hometown church - long but fun project. Here is the form if anyone needs it: (records older than 62 years are open to order from the public)


View attachment 31641

Conveniently located across the parking lot is the children’s museum where the kids can go play while you are looking at models of the USS Hornet and USS Columbia…

View attachment 31643

Unfortunately, not enough time to see the Battle of Cowpens or to even go by Sparkleberry Swamp in Rimini where I did some duck hunting in my youth - maybe next year…

View attachment 31642

It’s a real thing!
 

Randy Daytona

Cold War Relic
pilot
Super Moderator

It’s a real thing!

This just popped up - thought those with horses might enjoy it.

The horse breed that won the Revolutionary war almost disappeared. Here's how it's making a comeback


Marion's brigade crossing the Pedee River, S.C.. 1778, on their way to attack the British force under Tarleton from Currier & Ives. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington.


Marion's brigade crossing the Pedee River, S.C.. 1778, on their way to attack the British force under Tarleton from Currier & Ives. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington.
(now called the Pee Dee River…)


 

jollygreen07

Professional (?) Flight Instructor
pilot
Contributor
Shannon Hawkins, one of the horse owners mentioned in that USA Today article is a classmate of mine. Great guy, glad to see he is doing good things.
 

Randy Daytona

Cold War Relic
pilot
Super Moderator
As a heads up, if you are going on a summer vacation make sure you can get a car rental. We were planning on going to Pensacola Beach for Labor Day weekend but even booking 2 months early it is proving impossible to find a rental car. The shortage of automobiles is no joke.
 

villanelle

Nihongo dame desu
Contributor
As a heads up, if you are going on a summer vacation make sure you can get a car rental. We were planning on going to Pensacola Beach for Labor Day weekend but even booking 2 months early it is proving impossible to find a rental car. The shortage of automobiles is no joke.
It seems like some people hav luck going through Costco, even if everything is sold out when contacting the rental companies.
 

Randy Daytona

Cold War Relic
pilot
Super Moderator
Over the past year, was able to visit a few more museums that are well worth your time:

Just outside of Phoenix was the CAF museum. We were there as the B-17 was boarding passengers and going for a ride - will get there in time on any future visit to check off a bucket list item of riding in a WW2 warbird.



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And in Colorado Springs, the WW2 Aviation museum:


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